


Detective Raven and the Mysterious Case of the Comatose Metalbender

by Coshledak



Series: Unforgettable Verse [1]
Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Discussions of sex, Gen, Mutant Husbands, Unforgettable Verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-03
Updated: 2012-04-03
Packaged: 2017-11-03 00:17:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/374948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coshledak/pseuds/Coshledak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles chuckles, lowering his cup from his lips. “There’s nothing wrong, really. He’s just…” Charles looks down at his mug, considering his answer. “He’s temporarily misplaced his brain in favor of watching mindnumbing television. How's that?”</p><p>She's pretty sure that was a really dressed up way of saying that Erik’s turned into a couch potato.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Detective Raven and the Mysterious Case of the Comatose Metalbender

**Author's Note:**

> I role-play.
> 
> Specifically, I role-play with fromparriswithlove/luctor et emergo. We particularly role-play a lovely Cherik role-play that I love with my entire capacity to love. It keeps me sane through the lack of Cherik present in K&C right now.
> 
> She plays Erik to my Charles.
> 
> Specifically, she plays a mindnumbing-television-watching!Erik to my easily-amused!Charles. We also switch off playing Raven.
> 
> This is dedicated to herrrr.
> 
> This takes place sometime in **Part I** of the Unforgettable Verse.

Sporadic visits don’t happen all that often, largely because she’s a college student and she has “better” things to do with her time than visit the two not-together-at-the-time-but-together-now mutants who live about ten miles from campus. “Better” is often homework and is rarely hanging out with her friends—particularly now, around midterms—but she’s found a pocket of time and she hasn't checked in on them recently. Charles and Erik are the sort of couple that require people checking on them, mostly because of Erik’s brilliant plan to disappear last month. There’s no telling when he’ll manage to screw something else up; hence, periodic visits just to make sure that nothing has fallen apart.

Alex answers the door when she gets there, although he barely pauses to say hello before apologizing and mentioning he has homework. She always figured homeschooling would be easier if you gave puppy eyes at the right time, but apparently Charles has become an educational drill sergeant since he properly adopted Alex. Still, she can’t complain, Alex certainly seems happier than she can remember.

The first—and most—curious thing comes when she passes through the living room. She’s half expecting to see Charles grading mid-terms—or possibly cackling evilly about creating mid-terms, the way she imagines most of her teachers at the university do—but he isn’t. The only person in the living room is Erik, stretched out on a couch that’s too small for his tall frame, and the only noise is the television which is neither too loud nor too quiet.

“Hey,” she offers. Erik doesn’t reply, which prompts her to just lean her hip against the back of the couch and watch for a moment. She recognizes Hoarders instantly. “Are you actually watching this?”

It might have been hard to keep the slight tilt of laughter out of her voice if she’d tried, but she hadn’t. She figures Erik has just paused on the station long enough to wait for advertisements to pass on something else he was watching. The fact that he doesn’t answer seems to prove otherwise.

“Erik?”

“Quiet,” he grunts, raising an arm from where it was hanging off the edge of the couch. He doesn’t gesture at her, just cranks up the volume another few notches. It still isn’t terrible, but it’s bordering on too loud.

The fact that she’s baffled makes it a challenge to find an appropriate way to respond to that. She realizes, just as she’s passing the threshold into the kitchen, that she should have pointed out how rude that was. As it is, she figures she isn’t getting any answers from Erik, which means the next logical step is to find Charles. Easy enough, he’s rinsing dishes before putting them in the dishwasher.

“What’s wrong with Erik?”

She means to say something along the lines of ‘hey’ or maybe even hug him from behind as a surprise. As it is, her mind still isn’t catching up with the rest of her. No surprise there—she didn’t think anyone else would have had a better reaction to finding Erik mindwarped on the couch.

“Hm?” Charles turns around, then blinks before breaking into a pleasant smile. “Hello there, love. I didn’t know you’d be stopping in.”

He turns off the water and starts drying his hands on the nearby dishtowel. She watches him and crosses her arms.

“Random inspection,” she says, trying to make it sound like it’s some sort of official business. Charles’ smile grows more amused, and she can tell that everything’s alright this time around. She smiles in return.

“Ah, I see. Would you like some coffee, then, Inspector Darkholme?”

“No need to bribe me, professor, you’ve already passed.” She starts stripping off her jacket as she heads to the small table in the corner. There is a stack of books and a magazine on the edge of the flat surface. One of the books is in front of the chair that Erik usually occupies—she notices a pencil marking his place before she catches the title.

“A GED study guide?”

She pulls it closer as her eyes flick to Charles. She notices that he stiffens a bit as he’s pouring coffee, but he relaxes a second later.

“Erik’s,” he replies, simply. “He was studying.”

“Oh,” she says lamely; it’s just an effort to sound disinterested. She doesn’t want to pry too much—Erik’s past seems like it’s such a touchy thing—but it’s more than that. She just learned something, even if it was something like the fact that Erik had never graduated high school. She doesn’t need to know why; it isn’t any of her business.

So a change of subject is in order after she checks the page he was reading—the Language Arts section—and closes the book. She pushes it back over to Erik’s seat just as Charles takes the chair beside her, setting a cup of coffee down.  
“Speaking of—what’s wrong with him?”

Charles blinks and flicks his eyes towards the living room. She can tell he’s considering getting up and checking on him, but he refrains. “Wrong?”

“He’s just kind of…staring at the television.”

The confusion clears from his face in a flash, replaced by an amused quirk of his lips. “Oh, there’s a new episode of Hoarders on tonight.”

She’s missed something, clearly. “So…?”

Charles chuckles, lowering his cup from his lips. “There’s nothing wrong, really. He’s just…” Charles looks down at his mug, considering his answer. “He’s temporarily misplaced his brain in favor of watching mindnumbing television. How's that?”

She's pretty sure that was a really dressed up way of saying that Erik’s turned into a couch potato.

“This isn’t a new thing?” She’d just assumed that Erik had gotten caught up in it tonight, like any other adventure in channel flipping. It tends to happen when one has already seen all the reruns of the shows they like.

“Relatively new,” he replies. “Since getting the job at the mechanic’s shop and studying for his GED. He just needs a way to shut down.”

“He can’t do that—” She stops herself, though, because it’s a little different directly commenting on someone’s sex life than it is making jokes about it. Not that they joke about Charles and Erik—none of her friends know them—but about celebrities. A lot of jokes have been yelled at television screens.

“Can’t do that…what?” Charles presses, flicking his eyes up towards her. Although he’s long since promised not to go into any of their minds’ there's still that eerie look in his blue eyes like he knows.

Still, she tries anyway. “Nothing.”

“You’re certain?”

She should just say yes, but it’s very hard to. It seems like it’s quite the legitimate question, after all.

“He can’t just…you know,” she shifts, picks up her coffee and holds it. She feels like she's trying to act out a scene in a movie. This entire moment is oddly surreal. “‘Shut down’ with you?”

Charles does her the kindness of looking confused for a second before his eyes widen. He’s never shown any signs of being the blushing virgin type—she’s seen him tease Erik in public—but his cheeks tinge pink now. It’s probably because of the fact the conversation feels just as strange to him as it does to her.

“If he did, I think it’d be rather dull for me,” he points out. He clears his throat and sips his coffee before setting it on the table again. His fingers wrap around the blue ceramic and she can only manage to nod numbly, categorizing this as one of the more awkward conversations she’s ever had. It ranks right up there with that one time her mother had been drunk and— _No, not thinking about it._

After a moment, Charles adds helpfully: “Besides, I think this was more…appropriate for you to walk in on, yes?”

And she can’t help but laugh at that one, because it’s very true and she’s still very awkward. The laughter is really about 85% relief that she didn’t have to shuffle, embarrassed, out of the house after an hour of ‘well what do I say now?’ silence.

“Yes, _much_ more appropriate. Thank God.”

Erik picks that moment to come into the kitchen. He pulls a beer out of the fridge with all the quickness of a man who spent a good amount of time deliberating whether or not to get off the couch at all, and then decided ‘yes’ at just such a moment that he was now worried his program would start before he got back. He doesn’t so much grunt in acknowledgment that the two of them are sitting there, but he doesn’t have to. Raven quirks her brow at Charles who just shakes his head and smiles, clearly a bit embarrassed for his lover.

“Is it always like that?” She takes another sip of her coffee.

“Most of the time,” Charles says, still chuckling.

Erik turns down the television again in the other room, probably realizing that it was suddenly louder against the backdrop of silence.

“Can’t you snap him out of it?”

“I—” Charles pauses and looks off to the side. He runs his hand back through his hair.

She quirks a brow. “Yes or no?”

“Well, yes,” he says. “Of course.”

“Why not do it now, then?” She really does want to see Erik before she heads back to campus, after all, even if it’s only enough to get a hug or a glare of confused acknowledgment.

But the way Charles turned his attention down to his coffee made her fairly certain that wasn’t what would happen if Charles did extract him mentally from his show.

“Well, then we’d be back into inappropriate territory.”

“Really?”

“He gets very engrossed!” Charles sounds exasperated, which makes it all the more funny. He sighs and waves his hand, like he can gesture away the entire topic. Raven can barely get her laughing under control. “Besides, it wraps up at ten. You may as well just say hello on your way out.”

Which was precisely what she did, once Erik started seeing the world again. It’s a little before ten when he walks into the kitchen, apparently seeking out Charles. He is genuinely surprised to see Raven sitting at the table with him.


End file.
